There is a large environmental concern surrounding Feminine Hygiene products. A woman uses about 16,800 tampons or sanitary pads in her lifetime. Waste consultant Franklin Associates reports that 6.5 billion tampons end up in landfills or sewage systems in the USA. About 2.5 million tampons, 1.4 million pads & 700,000 panty liners were flushed away daily.
Tampon Applicators in current commercial use are typically made from either an insoluble plastic or a flushable smooth surfaced cardboard. Plastic tampon applicators are preferred by women but are typically made of insoluble polyethylene using an injection-molding process. These plastic tampon applicators have always posed and still pose a significant environmental and aesthetic problem as they continue to be flushed down toilets in alarming numbers instead of being disposed of with the dry trash. This is a continued annoyance as plastic tampon applicators also have a tendency to wash up on local beaches and wreak havoc on municipal treatment plants.
Although cardboard is considered to be more environmentally friendly compared to plastic, it still requires up to 6 months to fully dissolve when disposed of in a toilet.
Furthermore, cardboard applicators are less popular among females due primarily to the insertion difficulties that are associated with cardboard applicators. These difficulties range from the lack of strong grip rings to inferior slip characteristics and lack of comfortable petal shaped or conical shaped tips.
Cardboard tampon applicators can also be more difficult to shape and more difficult to make smooth cuts (i.e. petal cuts) that will not cause issues on insertion, such as inconvenience and lack of comfort.
Cardboard tampon applicators are commonly thought of as less comfortable to insert and are more difficult to form into shapes other than uniform cylindrical tubes.
Many cardboard tampon applicators are coated with a non-compostable coating to strengthen the applicator and/or reduce the coefficient of friction rendering the tampon applicator less environmentally friendly.
Furthermore, cardboard tampon applicators tend to collect grease as they travel through the wastewater system causing serious problems with grease balls.
The gripping structures on cardboard tampon applicators are typically formed after the cardboard has been formed into tube-like shapes. This results in an added processing step, which translates to increased cost.
Currently there is no type of indicia, such as branding, logos, or a message on the tampon applicator, available in the market place.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a biodegradable tampon applicator which is environmentally friendly and substantially water soluble.
It is another object of the invention to provide a biodegradable tampon applicator with at least one finger grip to aid the user during the insertion of the applicator in to the vaginal vault.
It is also another object of the invention to provide a biodegradable tampon applicator with improvements to reduce inconvenience and/or injury during insertion of the tampon into the vaginal vault.
It is another object of the invention to provide a film forming process to manufacture a biodegradable tampon applicator.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a pin to be used in the film forming process to manufacture a tampon applicator.
It is another object of the invention to provide a tampon applicator with at least one indicium thereon.
Further and other objects of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following summary of the invention, figures, detailed descriptions of the invention, examples and appended claims.